


People Are Strange

by CindySin



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Billy Hargrove Has Powers, Billy Isn’t Quite As Much Of An Asshole, Eventual Smut, Friends to Lovers, Inspired by Stranger Things (TV 2016), Male-Female Friendship, Martin Brenner Being an Asshole, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Recreational Drug Use, Slow Burn, Supernatural Elements, We’ll Meet All Major Characters Eventually
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:48:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25616887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CindySin/pseuds/CindySin
Summary: Helen Morrigan, also known as 017, has been living outside of Hawkins National Lab since she realised just how powerful her ‘gift’ is and used it to blackmail Dr Brenner into allowing her to live a fairly normal teenage life, as long as she keeps her responsibilities to him and his work.But then Billy Hargrove arrives in town and turns her world on it’s head when she discovers that he has a gift almost as powerful as hers, and that he has no idea about it.When terrible things begin happening in Hawkins, where will Helen’s loyalties lie? With the man who raised her but keeps her shackled to a life she wants to leave behind, or with someone she’s known for just a few short months, who she knows could bring about an apocalypse if he misuses his gift for the wrong reasons?One thing is for sure, her life will never be the same again...
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 7





	1. When You’re Strange, No One Remembers Your Name

**Author's Note:**

> **The Morrígan**  
>  The Morrígan or Mórrígan, also known as Morrígu, is one of the most mysterious figures from Irish mythology. The name Morrígan means ‘phantom queen’, and she is regarded in Irish folklore as the Goddess of war, battle and death.  
> The Morrígan is mainly associated with war and fate, especially with foretelling doom, death or victory in battle. The Morrígan encourages warriors to do brave deeds and strikes fear into their enemies.  
> The Morrígan is a shapeshifter, and frequently appears as a black crow, the badb, an ominous sign for those who see her prior to battle. Another favoured form is a wolf.  
> In Irish folklore, the Morrígan is the wife of the Dagda, the God of strength, who controls life, death, time and the seasons, including the weather.

017\. Helen’s finger traces absentmindedly over the three small numbers etched into the skin on the inside of her wrist, ever so slightly raised. She doesn’t remember them being put there, doesn’t know exactly how old she was. Younger than two, she thinks. She could find out for sure, she thinks Brenner would tell her, or she could just take the information from him, pluck it from his brain like a feather from a dead chicken. She won’t though. It’s not important. Irrelevant really.

“Are you with us today Miss Morrigan?”

Kaminsky’s voice cuts through her reverie, and she hears a snigger behind her. 

“Unfortunately so Mr Kaminsky” Helen replies, shooting him a sarcastic smile. He doesn’t return it.

“Then perhaps you could explain to the class how to calculate the dilution of the chemicals you’ll be needing in the practical exam next Tuesday?”

She switches off again as she recites the portion of the text book that explains just that, her mind drifting back to Brenner. He hasn’t checked in on her for a few weeks now; she should probably expect a call or a visit soon.  
She’s interrupted by the door to the classroom being opened by the nervous looking woman from the admin office whose name she can never remember, stuttering her way through an explanation to Kaminsky that a new student has enrolled, will be taking this class. He saunters through the door, all tanned skin and blonde curls and piercing blue-grey eyes. She sits up slightly, her full attention on him now. He’s gorgeous, but she can tell by his demeanour that he knows it. She rolls her eyes.  
New Hunk scans the room as Nervous Lady hands over some paperwork to Kaminsky, babbles some more about him, says he’s moved to Hawkins from California, blah blah blah. His eyes linger on her, just for a moment, and she feels her skin prickle. Interesting.

“Thank you Mrs Howard. Mr Hargrove, why don’t you take a seat over there next to Miss Morrigan.”  
  
Kaminsky points to the empty seat next to hers, and she watches New Hunk’s feet from the corner of her eye as he strolls across the room and slides into the chair next to her. She can feel his gaze on her as Kaminsky resumes talking, only to be interrupted by the bell seconds later.  
She stands, books in hand, feeling the heat of his stare as it crawls over her, taking her in. She leans over, plants a hand on his desk in front of him.

“Take a picture California. It’ll last longer.”

He grins as she walks away, his eyes burning into her back. She could have some fun with this one she thinks, smiling to herself. 

———

Turns out chem isn’t the only class she shares with New Hunk.  
She ends up paired up with him in English Lit, studying Percy Bysshe Shelley, of all things. 

“Do chicks really get all wet over this shit?” he asks, scanning over the poem in front of him, eyebrow raised. Helen snorts a laugh.

“Never tried it myself” she says, and he looks at her curiously.

“You bat for the other side?”

She laughs again, leans forward and lowers her voice.

“I like to keep my options open California. Why cut out half of them based on what’s between their legs?”

His mouth falls open just a little, and she leans back, a satisfied smirk on her face. She taps her pencil on the paper in front of him.

“Focus California. This won’t get done if you’re too busy thinking about me eating your girlfriend out.”

He clears his throat, his cheeks flushing as he shifts a little in his chair.

“Not that wouldn’t be something to behold,” he says, eyeing another student as they wander past his desk, “-but I don’t have a girlfriend. Not the commitment type.”

Helen raises an eyebrow, looks him in the eye.

“Nail and bail. I like your style California. You’re a guy after my own heart.”

He laughs. She likes him, in spite of his air of arrogance and overconfidence.   
They work easily together, bouncing ideas off of each other and nodding along to the other’s suggestions, and by the end of the class she thinks they might actually get a decent mark for the paper they have to write up at home. Of course that means they’ll have to see each other outside of school, but she doesn’t think that’ll be a problem. 

“So uh-“ he lifts up the notebook she’s writing in, scans the cover, “-Helen, would it be a problem if I come to you to do this? It’s just with unpacking and shit, my place is pretty hectic at the minute, might be quieter at yours.”

She nods as the bell rings for lunch.

“Sure. How’s tonight sound?”

He scowls.

“I gotta drop my stepsister off at the arcade, but I could come over after that. What’s the address?”

She scrawls it on a page in the notebook, tears it out and hands it over. He studies it for a moment.

“This in town? I’ve don’t think I’ve heard of this street.”

She shakes her head as she packs her things into her bag.

“It’s out by the lake,” she tells him as they step out into the hallway. Tommy Hagan makes a beeline for them, no doubt to size up the fresh meat she thinks, work out if he’s friend or foe.

“Don’t get too friendly with the witch” Tommy says loudly, directing his comment at Billy as he approaches. Helen rolls her eyes. “She’ll put a spell on you, make you start seeing the end of the world or some shit.”

“I told you before Tommy,” she drawls, sighing. “It’s not witchcraft that’s responsible for you not being able to handle a little acid.” Billy grins, clearly enjoying the banter between them. “Maybe next time there’s a party at the lake you should stick to weed and leave the real drugs to the big boys and girls.”

“Fuck you Morrigan” Tommy spits, his cheeks burning. Helen laughs. 

“In your dreams Hagan.”

She turns to Billy, who’s watching their exchange intently with a smirk.

“Later then. Say 4.30?”

“4.30” he repeats back.

She takes few backwards steps, blows a kiss at Tommy as she turns and walks away laughing.

“The fuck you doing hanging round with her?” Tommy asks Billy, nodding in Helen’s direction with a scowl as she walks through the main doors and out into the parking lot.

“Got paired up with her in English Lit. She seems alright to me,” Billy tells Tommy, watching her go. “She’s funny.”

Tommy’s eyes narrow.

“Yeah, funny weird, not funny ha ha. She’s some sort of witch or something man, I’m telling you. She fucked Mike Lewenski last year, and the next day he couldn’t remember any of it. Says she did some freaky mind shit on him, made him forget it all.”

Billy laughs out loud.

“Yeah? Then how does he know he fucked her?”

Tommy’s brow furrows as he thinks.

“Exactly,” Billy says, shaking his head. “More like he was tanked, or he let her do some shit to him he doesn’t wanna admit to. Made up an excuse about not being able to remember so he won’t get shit about liking a finger up the ass or whatever.”

The guy behind Tommy sniggers, and Billy smirks.

“It’s Billy right?” Tommy asks, and Billy nods. “Wanna come for a smoke? Got some pot that my cousin just bought, quality stuff.”

“Sure,” Billy answers, shrugging his shoulders. “Gotta get through the day somehow.”

———

Helen lays upside down on the bed, foot tapping on the wall above her as The Clash reverberates through the room. She sings along, eyes closed, as the pencil hovers in the air above her.   
Her eyes open when she hears a knock at the door. She checks her watch. 4.36. New Hunk. When she gets up to answer it the pencil falls to the bedspread behind her. 

“California, glad you could make it” she says, grinning as she opens the door. Billy smirks as he steps inside.

“Had to weigh up whether it was more dangerous to piss off the witch or be alone with her” he sniggers, and Helen rolls her eyes.

“Tommy fucking Hagan” she says, shaking her head as she laughs. “That douchebag’s so stupid he probably thinks anything he doesn’t understand is witchcraft. The rising of the sun, quadrilateral equations, why he repulses every female in a fifty mile radius...”

Billy laughs out loud.

“Sounds about right. I only spent twenty minutes with the guy and that was more than enough to realise he’s not the brightest crayon in the box.”

Helen chuckles to herself as she opens the refrigerator.

“Drink?” she asks Billy, who’s still stood by the door, looking around the kitchen.

“Yeah sure. Your folks not home?”

Helen shakes her head as she tosses him a soda.

“Nope. I pretty much live alone. My, uh, guardian, he works for the government. He’s not here most of the time. He checks in by phone, drops by once a month or so. There’s a woman who comes and cleans once a week and drops some groceries off, but other than that I’m home alone. Just how I like it.”

Billy’s eyebrows are raised as he takes a mouthful of soda, swallows it down.

“Guardian? Your parents dead or something?”

She shrugs, opens her own drink.

“Dunno. Never met them. They left me with him when I was a baby. Wanna get started on this paper?”

Billy nods. She gestures down the hallway.

“Follow me then California. Boots off.”

He follows her into her bedroom, eyes taking in the dark walls, the deer skull on the shelf above her bed, candles in solid pools of wax on the dresser.

“Uh, are you sure you’re not a witch?” he asks, laughing nervously. She snorts laughter.

“Perfectly sure,” she tells him, sitting cross-legged on the bed. “It’s just for... ambience. You wanna strip me down and check me for the Devil’s mark?” she smirks, and Billy grins.

“Depends. You gonna wipe my memory after like that guy Tommy told me about?” He sits on the bed opposite her, watches her as she thinks for a moment.

“You mean Lewenski? Mike Lewenski?” She laughs out loud. “He was so drunk he could have fucked his own mother and wouldn’t remember it.” She shakes her head. “I didn’t touch him. He passed out on the bed, I left him to sleep it off. I like my men conscious California.”

They start work on the paper they’re meant to be putting together, Billy reading out their notes and Helen writing it up, him interjecting to add bits every now and then.

“Wanna put another record on?” she asks him as Straight to Hell finishes, static kicking in.

“Sure,” he says, standing up and stretching his legs. “You don’t want the other side on?”

“Nah” she tells him, tapping her pen on the paper in front of her. “Box is down there.”

She points to a crate of records on the other side of the room, tucked down the side of the dresser. Billy pulls it out, sits down and flicks through them. He’s mildly impressed by her taste in music. Crüe, Maiden, The Misfits, Ozzy. He pulls one out and turns it to her, eyebrow raised.

“Hanoi Rocks?” he asks her, smirking.

“Do not trash them in my presence,” she tells him, not looking up. “Razzle is a god on the drums. I’ll curse you if you say a bad word about them.” The corner of her mouth twitches as she hears him muttering about witches under his breath.

His eyes widen as he pulls another record from the crate.

“You’ve got this? This was only released like, a week ago.”

She looks up, sees he’s holding Ratt’s Out of The Cellar up.

“Sure. Pam picks them up for me from the record store in town, drops them off with the grocery shopping. Put it on, I haven’t listened to it yet.”

Billy sets the record up on the turntable, and Wanted Man fills the room. He air drums his way back over to the bed, flops back onto it. 

“Man, I love Ratt” he sighs, and Helen smiles to herself. It’s nice to meet someone with something in common she thinks. She’s pretty much regarded as an outcast at school, other than a handful of kids who don’t really give a shit what the rest of the student population think, kids like Jonathan Byers and Robin Buckley. Would be good to have someone to add to the circle she muses to herself.

“I think we’re done here, actually” she tells him, scanning through the paper. “I was gonna make some mac and cheese if you want some?”

“Sure” Billy says, nodding along to the beat. “Better than going home.”

He sticks out a hand, and as Helen takes it to pull him up off the bed she’s hit by vision of Billy being shoved up against a wall in an anonymous house, a hand fisted in the front of his shirt, blood trickling down his chin from a split lip. She feels his fear and rage and hatred slice through her skull like a knife and she drops his arm, clutches her head in her hands.

“Hey, you ok?”

Billy reaches out to touch her and she takes a step back, stumbling.

“I’m ok” she says, eyes blinking as she rubs her temples, the vision and pain gone as quickly as it arrived. “I just get these really intense headaches sometimes, I’ll be fine in a second.”

Billy looks at her, weighing up what she’s just said.

“Honestly, I’m fine” she says, straightening up and smiling at him. “I’m starving, let’s eat.”

She turns for the kitchen on shaky legs. It’s been a while since she’s gotten a blast that strong, that powerful. Months, maybe even a year. Certainly not from anyone outside the lab. Her mind drifts back to the way her skin had prickled in the classroom earlier when Billy had watched her, the way she’d picked up on his interest. She’d wondered then if he had a hint of ‘the gift’, as they call it at the lab, but now she’s sure of it.   
Her fingers drift to the numbers on her wrist again without her realising, rub over them. 

“Can you grab me a pan?” she asks Billy as she pulls herself from her thoughts, pointing to the cupboard next to the stove as she pulls a box of mac and cheese from the shelf, tears it open.   
She turns to take it from him, and when he looks at her he frowns. 

“Uh, your nose is bleeding” he tells her, pointing to her face. She wipes at it, studies the smear of blood on the back of her hand. Her nose never bleeds anymore, not since she was a child, since she learnt exactly how powerful she is, since she embraced her gifts and started using them instead of fearing them and fighting them. As she stares at that streak of crimson on her hand, she realises Billy Hargrove is much, much more than just some California hunk who knows how hot he is. Billy Hargrove is trouble. Now she just needs to work out how much...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anybody who has read any of my previous fics will know that music is a huge part of and influence on my writing. The idea for this came to me when I was listening to The Doors, People Are Strange, and when I woke in the middle of the night with a fully formed vision of Billy Hargrove holding back the end of the world with some kind of supernatural power I knew I had to get it down on ‘paper’.  
> I’ll be exploring the full extent of Helen’s powers for sure, but for now she’s definitely telekinetic, telepathic, an empath (she can ‘sense’ others emotions, particularly through physical contact, and she’ll also be able to influence them as well), and she can experience ‘visions’ on contact with people as well.  
> Please let me know in the comments if you like this, I live for feedback, and I always welcome constructive criticism.  
> Thank you for reading.


	2. It’s Not Easy Puttin’ On A Smile, You’re Alone Lost And Found

_“Come on now Seventeen. Don’t you want to make your Papa happy?”_

_The girl doesn’t lift her head, just scowls beneath the curtain of hair that’s hanging down over her face as she scratches at the tattooed numbers on her wrist._

_“Stop saying that. You’re not my Papa” she tells the man defiantly, and he chuckles._

_“Of course I am” he tells her, stepping around the end of the bed to sit on it at her feet. “Why would you say something like that?”_

_She doesn’t speak for a minute or more, just continues scraping at those three numbers with her thumb nail.He reaches out and places his hands over hers, stopping her._

_“Tell me why you think I’m not your Papa” he says again quietly, and she lifts her head to look at him._

_She knows that voice. That’s the voice he uses when he’s getting annoyed with her. She can feel it, feel an undercurrent of impatience in his touch, tinged with a tiny amount of anger, but he’s holding that back. He wants her to know that she needs to answer him, but he doesn’t want her to be scared of him. Except there’s something else. Something mixed in with those two emotions, something barely perceptible. He’s holding that back too, so she focuses on it and picks it out, separates it like a single strand of grey hair on the head of a brunette.   
_ _It’s fear. She can feel it, smell it, it’s acrid like smoke, and for some reason she can’t quite pinpoint, doesn’t quite understand, it pleases her. Makes her feel powerful._

_“I saw it” she whispers, and the fear pulses, the smell intensifying before it abates again. It’s there though, that fear, thrumming in the background._

_“What do you mean, Seventeen?”_

_His voice is soft, and she knows, as young as she is, that this is a turning point. Not just in the conversation, but in her life. If she tells him the truth now, things will change forever. But maybe she thinks, maybe if she’s careful, she could change them to her advantage, she could multiply that single strand of fear and make it a streak, running right through his core. The thought makes her smile to herself, and that fear she feels pulses again._

_“I saw it in your brain” she says, nonchalantly, as if discussing the weather. “I saw you taking me, at the hospital. I was a baby, but I know it was me, because I had this.” She points to the birthmark on her foot, the dark patch of skin that she’s always thought looked like a bird, if she squints at it just right. “There was a lady there, and she was sick, but she didn’t want you to take me. She screamed at you, but a doctor came in and put a needle in her arm and she went to sleep.” She lowers her voice. “Like when I’ve been bad, and you make me sleep.”_

_The whole time she’s been talking the strand of fear has been pulsing, but when she tells him about the screaming lady it comes alive, thrumming in her hands and glowing bright blue. It gets bigger, fatter, and she smiles._

_“I don’t want you to make me sleep anymore” she tells him softly, her voice calm and even. She looks into his eyes. “You won’t make me sleep anymore, because you’re not my papa. You’re going to tell me the truth.” She pauses, tilts her head and smiles to herself. “And you’re going to give me an extra biscuit at dinner time.”_

_His eyes are unfocused, looking right through her as he begins to speak._

_“Your mother was part of an experiment, a project. Top secret. Highest security clearance. We didn’t think it had worked on her, that she’d had no lasting effects, but then... things started to happen, when she was pregnant. We were watching, you see. Observing her. She... her mind, it couldn’t take the strain of the... visions.” He frowns, his eyes clearing a little, and she speaks again, her voice still soft._

_“Focus” she says, and he drifts again, his gaze hazy._

_“She was admitted to hospital, kept sedated until she gave birth, when the visions stopped. We knew then it was you, not her. They were coming from you. And they were powerful. More powerful than any we’d seen before.” His voice drops to a whisper and the fear intensifies, she can hear it now, humming like an electrical current and she can feel static in the air. She smiles. When he speaks again his voice wavers, and she can hear the fear in it._

_“We sent a team for you, and it was a catastrophe. They were meant to have sedated her beforehand, but for some reason it hadn’t been done. She woke when they came to take you, screamed and shouted. It triggered you, primed you like a weapon.” A single tear rolls down his cheek, and it gives her an intense feeling of satisfaction as she watches it run down his chin and fall from his jaw to his trousers, disappearing into the fabric._

_“The blast from you wiped them out. Every one of them. Hancock was closest, took the brunt of it. He dropped dead on the spot, his brain liquefying in his skull, leaking from his nose and his ears. I vomited when I saw it. Jeffords and Spencer were driven insane by it, by the things they saw. Spencer clawed his own eyes out, trying to make the visions go away. He was still screaming when I arrived, more than an hour later, ‘they’re burning’ he was saying, ‘they’re all burning in hell’. We had to put him out of his misery. Jeffords was taken to an institution, but he died within the year. He never spoke again.”_

_He pauses, swallows audibly. The fear had fallen back a little, withdrawn, but now it’s building again, and the atmosphere in her room feels thick, heavy, like the air before a thunderstorm. It’s like trying to breath soup, and when he speaks again he sounds a little breathless._

_“I knew then that I had to handle it myself. So I did. I led the extraction team. We couldn’t let you go, not once we knew how powerful you were. How powerful you are. Even now, we’ve never seen anything close. So we went in, made sure you were separated when we sedated her. Took you. Brought you back here. Had to keep you sedated too at first, until you were old enough to control it adequately. People died. People got hurt.” His voice is hoarse, and when she looks down she sees a spreading dark patch at his crotch. She realises he’s peed himself in fear, and she laughs out loud. It breaks the trance.   
_  
_He shakes his head, and when his eyes focus and he realises what she’s done he scrambles from the bed, looks down at the wet warmth between his legs. She can feel the panic and fear coming off him in waves, bitter and intense, and she laughs again as he pounds on the door with a fist, shouts to be let out._

_The door swings open and he practically runs from the room, eyes wild and a trail of fear following him. She hears him shout for Tony as the door swings shut, and when he arrives a few minutes later with a syringe in his hand she screams as they hold her down and he injects her with it._

_“I like it when he’s blue” she mutters to herself as she drifts into a dreamless sleep. When she wakes up, several hours later, her dinner tray is on the table at the end of her bed. There’s an extra biscuit next to her milk, and she smiles to herself as she pulls the table closer._

———

“Earth to Helen, you on another planet or something?”

The voice cuts through her daydream, brings Helen back to the present day, sitting in Billy’s Camaro with a joint in her fingers, Metallica playing on the radio. 

“You gonna pass that or what?”

She hands the joint over to Billy who drags on it deeply, inhaling. 

“You always like this?’ he asks around a lungful of smoke, grinning. Helen looks over at him, frowns.

“Like what” she says, and he laughs as he exhales.

“You know, off in your own little world. You were like it yesterday” he says, “you know, after the...” He points in the general direction of her nose and sniffs.

She shakes her head.

“Nah, just got a few things on my mind. You coming up to the lake later? There’s a bit of a party going on. I might be able to come up with something a little stronger” she tells him, nodding at the joint in his hand.

“Sounds like a plan, Stan” he tells her, grinning. “Want me to pick you up?”

“No point” she tells him, watching Tommy Hagan stalking across the parking lot hand in hand with Carol, frowning at them sitting together. “It’s only a five minute walk from my place. You might as well park at mine and walk up with me.” She shifts in her seat, turns toward him and grins. “Pam brings new records on Fridays. Hanoi Rocks just released a live album that she’s picking up for me.”

Billy groans, and Helen laughs.

“Give in to it California” she tells him, “embrace the god that is Razzle.”

“You wanna suck his dick or something?” Billy teases, smirking.

“Wouldn’t say no” she shrugs, grinning back at him. “Stop hogging that.”

She puts her hand out for him to pass the joint back to her, and as he does so his fingers brush hers and she gets a clear picture of Billy laying on his back, eyes closed and head tilted back, mouth open in a perfect ‘o’ as a dark haired head bobs between his legs. She’s pretty sure that dark hair belongs to her, and a mixture of arousal and annoyance runs through her.

“Dude, gross” she says without thinking, and Billy frowns. 

“What?” he asks, genuine confusion on his face, and Helen realises what she’s said. 

“Thinking about me sucking dick” she says, trying to cover her slip, make it relevant to the conversation. “You’ll be asking me to suck yours next” she tells him, an eyebrow raised and a smirk on her lips. She takes a drag on the almost spent joint before she drops it out of the open window. 

“Wouldn’t say no” he tells her, shooting her own words back at her and laughing as they climb out of the Camaro. 

“No fucking friends” she tells him, pointing at him over the roof of the car. “It never ends well, and quite frankly I’m the only friend you’ve got right now California, unless you count that dipshit Hagan.”

Billy laughs and holds up his hands

“Alright, alright, I’ll keep my filthy thoughts to myself” he tells her, chuckling. “Wouldn’t wanna piss of the Dust Witch” he says with a grin. 

Helen’s eyebrows shoot up, a surprised look on her face. 

“You’ve read ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’?” she asks, her voice incredulous. Billy shrugs, the corner of his mouth twitching. 

“I’m not just a pretty face you know” he tells her as they walk towards the main building. “I have hidden depths.” He glances at her, mouth twitching again. “I uh, also had to take Max to see the movie last year. Scared the shit out of her. She wet the bed that night” he grumbles, his tone annoyed. “Got shit from my old man for a week about that one, even though he’s the one who told me to take her in the first place. Fucking stupid movie anyway, like anyone can control what people feel.”

Helen feels her cheeks flush. It’s just a coincidence she tells herself in her mind, over and over. Billy glances at her, frowns slightly.

“You say something?” he asks, and Helen’s heart begins to pound against her ribcage, her hands feeling clammy all of a sudden. 

“Nope” she says, trying to sound normal. “I’m gonna head to the bathroom, gotta pee. I’ll see you later on, say five-thirty? I can make something to eat before we head up to the lake?” 

Billy nods as she breaks away, heading for the girl’s bathroom. 

“Sure thing, see you later” he calls, and relief washes over her as she realises she’s going to have to be a lot more careful around Billy in future. 


	3. One Pill Makes You Larger, And One Pill Makes You Small

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains recreational drug use. Just a warning.

Laughter and music drifts across the lake on the breeze, the water rippling beneath it as the twilight falls. Billy leans across from his seat on the sand next to Helen, dips into the cooler for a beer.

“You want one?” he asks her, and she shakes her head.

“Still got one going” she tells him, lifting the half empty bottle in her hand. Billy snorts. 

“Lightweight” he teases, nudging her with his shoulder as he twists the top off his bottle. Helen laughs. 

“I’m pacing myself California.” She lowers her voice, speaking only to him. “Don’t wanna get too tanked before the good stuff comes out.”

Billy looks at her, his full attention on her now. 

“Yeah? Whaddya got?” 

Helen smiles, nudges him back. 

“You’ll see later. It’s real good, nice smooth trip. Strong, but nothing you can’t sleep off.”

Billy nods, takes a swig of his drink. 

“Sounds good. Don’t start without me.” 

Tommy Hagan’s voice booms from behind them and the pair of them turn to see Carol stomping across the beach from between the trees with a scowl on her face, headed for the parked cars with Tommy following behind her, shouting after her. 

“Carol, it was a fucking joke, alright? I swear to god, I didn’t fuck your sister!” 

Billy snorts laughter as Tommy stops level with them and sighs, throwing his arms in the air. He flops to the sand, points to the cooler. 

“Pass me a beer, Morrigan” he says to Helen, who looks at him, an eyebrow raised. 

“What’s the magic word Hagan?” she asks him, her voice a purr, and he looks at her sharply.

“Don’t start with all that supernatural shit, witch” he says, and Billy sniggers. “Abraca-fucking-dabra” he spits sarcastically, and Billy laughs out loud. 

“I think she means please” he tells Tommy with a grin, passing a bottle over to Helen, who hands it to Tommy. He takes it, muttering grudgingly about women under his breath. 

“You got anything with you tonight?” he asks, directing his question at Helen. “I’m in the mood to get real fucked up.” She shakes her head, points as him with the hand clutching her bottle. 

“No way Hagan. Not after last time, not when you can’t handle it. I am not playing babysitter tonight” she tells him, knocking back the last of her beer. “You wanna get fucked up, find someone else to get fucked up with.” He scowls at her as he stands up, drains his bottle and tosses it into the woods behind them, where she hears it hit a tree and smash.

“What is with all the fucking girls tonight?” he whines, looking to Billy for back up, who shrugs at him, an amused look on his face. “First Carol, now you, do you all get synchronised fucking periods or something, makes you all bitches at the same time?” He stomps off without waiting for an answer, heading for another group further down the beach who are trying to start a fire with a pile of wood they’ve gathered from the tree line. 

Helen watches him go, makes sure he’s out of earshot before she turns to Billy and picks up her bag. 

“You ready? Thought we could take a wander in the woods” she says, giving him a look that tells him there’s another meaning to her words. He nods and stands up, brushing sand from his jeans. 

“Lead the way” he tells her, holding his hands to the side, and she grins as she stands, him following her into the trees. 

———

“You done this shit before?” she asks him as she pulls the small tin from her bag, pops the lid off it. There’s maybe a dozen tabs in the bottom of it, tiny pictures on them all. Billy nods, sitting opposite her on the fallen tree she’s straddling. 

“Coupla times, back in California. Same sort of thing, beach parties and shit.” 

“You ever have a bad trip on it? Cos I’m not giving you it if you did. Last thing anyone needs is to re-live that sort of shit.”

She eyes him as he shakes his head, and she’s as sure as she can be without dipping into his mind that he’s telling the truth. She considers it anyway briefly, decides against it. If she’s right, and he’s got the gift, he might sense her, freak out. She decides to trust him. She picks one of the tabs out, holds it between the tips of her finger and thumb, an Illuminati eye over a pyramid. She holds it up as she speaks. 

“This is some real strong shit. Good quality, but strong. You stick with me til it kicks in, til we know it’s a good trip. After that you do what you want, but anything funky happens, any bad shit goes down, you come find me. If you can’t find me, do you think you can find your way back to my place?” Billy nods, his expression serious. “Good. You head back to mine and you wait there for me. Tell someone where you’re going and I’ll come find you. If you need it, there’s a spare key in the mailbox, taped to the back. Do not fuck with this stuff. It can make all your best dreams a reality, but it’ll turn them into nightmares just as quick.”

He nods again, and Helen smiles at him. 

“Ready for the ride of your life California?”

He grins at her, shuffles closer, their denim clad knees touching. 

“Ready as I’ll ever be” he tells her, and she chuckles to herself. She opens her mouth, places the tab on the end of her tongue, and then she surprises Billy by leaning into him, pulling him to her by the lapels of his leather jacket, tilting her head. He mimics her automatically, pressing his lips to hers without thinking before he opens his mouth and her tongue brushes his, the tab of acid left behind as she withdraws from his wet heat. His lips feel soft and full against hers as she breaks their kiss, and he looks slightly dazed as she pulls back, the feeling of raging lust she felt on contact with him fading. 

“Thought you didn’t fuck with friends” he says, his voice rough, and Helen laughs. 

“I’m not sure what you’ve been doing up to now California, but that ain’t fucking.” She smiles at him as she picks a second tab up and replaces the lid on the tin, drops it into her bag. “Just leaving you with some good vibes to get the party started” she tells him, her voice a soft purr, and then she closes her eyes as she presses the tiny square of paper in her fingertips to her tongue. Billy watches her for a minute or two, she can feel that same prickle she felt in the classroom just a few short days ago, crawling its way over her skin. 

“Stop perving on me California” she says quietly, and she hears him snigger. “I can feel you watching me.”

“Not perving. Just... what do you mean, ‘you can feel me watching you’?” 

Helen opens her eyes, looks at him. His pupils are ever so slightly dilated, although it could be the dim light, and his mouth is turned up at the corner in a smile, his lips parted just a little. Lips that she’d lingered on just a little longer than she’d needed to, she thinks to herself. 

“You’ve never felt someone watching you? That feeling of someone’s eyes on you, hair standing on end, skin crawling?”

He starts to shake his head before he stops, tilts it as he thinks. 

“Maybe. Like a creepy vibe?” he asks, and his eyes widen a little more. 

“Sometimes” Helen replies, her gaze focussed on him. “Not always though. Sometimes it’s just... looking. But you can feel it, their eyes moving over you, like fingers stroking over your skin.” She runs her fingertips up his thigh, her nails scratching over the denim of his jeans, and he shivers under her touch, shifts slightly on the log.

“You think this is kicking in already?” he asks, his voice a low whisper. “Cos that felt pretty trippy.”

Helen giggles, draws her hand back from where it rests high on his leg. 

“Maybe” she says, standing up. “Let’s head back to the beach. You’ll know when we walk through the woods.” 

They wander back through the trees, and although darkness has fallen since they left the beach Helen has no trouble making out the shape of each branch, each limb of every tree they pass. She feels something touch her palm, and when she glances down Billy has tucked his hand into hers. She looks up at him and his eyes are wide and glassy as he looks around them. 

“Do you see them?” he whispers, and she follows his gaze to the treetops, where it seems like there’s a thousand crows perched, watching them. She nods. 

“Mmmhmm. They’ve come to me” she giggles, and Billy looks at her, grinning. 

“Listen” she tells him, and she lifts her hands to her mouth, imitates a crow’s caw. One in the tree closest to them tilts its head, regards her with a beady eye. Helen does it again, makes that sound, and then the bird caws in reply. Billy’s eyes widen, transfixed by the crow and Helen, watching one another. She lowers her arms and speaks. 

“Fly” she says, her voice nearly a whisper, and suddenly the air is filled with swirling black shapes, a cacophony of caws and the flapping of wings drowning out Billy’s gasp. They seem to disappear into the night, and when Helen looks at Billy his mouth hangs open. She giggles, and he snaps out of his trance. 

“That... that was something else” he breathes. “Were they... did we hallucinate that?”

Helen shakes her head, tugs at Billy’s arm to get him moving again. 

“Nope, no hallucination. These woods are always full of birds. It’s just the first time you’ve seen them” she tells him as they walk, the flicker of a fire now visible on the beach through the thinning trees. 

“Yeah, but that one spoke to you. It said your name.”

Helen giggles, and then Billy giggles with her, looking at her, pupils like dinner plates. 

“That bit was definitely the acid California. I’m ninety-nine percent sure that a crow cannot say Helen.”

“What’s this about a crow called Helen?” 

Robin is sitting in the spot they vacated a short while ago by the cooler, Jonathan Byers on her right hand side, and they’re both watching as Helen and Billy emerge from the tree line hand in hand. Robin raises an eyebrow as she notices, looks up at Billy’s glassy eyes and rolls her own. 

“Are you corrupting the new kid already Morrigan?” she asks, smirking. Helen laughs, Billy oblivious to the conversation as he watches the hazy air over the flames further down the beach. 

“Trust me, this isn’t his first rodeo” she snorts, looking over at him. “You want some?” 

“No to him, yes to the acid. J-Dog?” Robin says, turning to Jonathan. He shakes his head, frowning.

“Nah, I gotta work tomorrow. And stop calling me that.”

Helen steps back into the tree line with Robin, pulls the tin from her bag and takes out a tab. She places one on Robin’s tongue, giggles as the other girl licks her finger. 

“That’s so hot” Billy says, finally turned away from the firelight, and Helen laughs as Robin pretends to gag. 

“Urgh, fuck, I forgot you’ve been alone with him, where have those hands been?” She wipes her mouth in faux disgust with her sleeve, as Jonathan watches them, a smile dancing over his face. 

“Nowhere interesting, trust me” Helen says, shooting Billy a grin. “No fucking friends, remember Buckley? No matter how bad you want me in your panties.” Robin flips her the middle finger, pulls a face at her, and Helen takes a few steps toward Billy, reaches out to grab his hand and tugs him over toward Jonathan, Robin following the pair of them. She pulls him down to the sand to sit next to her, Robin flopping down on her other side.

“Billy, this is Jonathan” she tells him, Jonathan raising a hand as Billy nods at him, “and you already met Robin. Jonathan works at the Hawkins Post, does some photography for them on weekends, covers stuff at school, that sort of thing. Robin here is a full time lesbian.”

Robin leans over to rest her head on Helen’s shoulder, looks up at her. 

“Have I ever told you, how much I hate you?” she says, her giggles giving away the lie. Helen grins and leans down, kisses her on the forehead. 

“Only like a million times.”

“Uh, is he ok?” Jonathan asks, sounding genuinely concerned, and when she looks over at Billy he’s running his hands through the sand around him, mesmerised by it. Helen laughs as she stands up, and reaches down to pull Billy to his feet by his arm.

“Alright Hot Shot, lets go for a swim, get you in that cold water. It’ll shock your system, get that trip moving.” 

He follows her down to the lake’s edge, eyes wide as he grabs at the stars above. 


	4. Stop Dreaming Of The Quiet Life, Cos It’s The One We’ll Never Know

She’s laying on her back in the water, hands swirling around her, watching the spirals of colour in the ripples when his fingers touch her shoulders. She’s immediately filled with a soft teal light from within, calm and mellow, with ripples of yellow. Happiness.

Helen’s been feeling the colours when people touch her for as long as she can remember. As a child, in the lab, she couldn’t understand at first why almost everyone was blue, until she realised that blue was fear. Fear of her, fear of what she could do, what she was capable of. For some of them that blue never went away, just intensified after the incident with Brenner. But there was a handful of others, people who’d never been blue.

There was Pam, who’d looked after her, cared for her as a child, the closest thing to a mother she’d ever known or had. Pam still delivered groceries for her now, cleaned the house, picked up new clothes and records for her. She delivered the groceries on a Friday with the records, and on a Monday she came and cleaned. She’d always leave a home cooked meal on the stove with a dessert in the fridge or on the counter top. Pam was always a soft pink. A caring love, the kind a parent has for a child.

Brenner, on the other hand, was grey. Cold, indifferent. False. He pretended to care for Helen, and probably the others, told her he was her papa for almost seven years, until the incident. After that his grey was tinged with blue.

Tony was one of the few people who had truly scared her at the lab. He was black. Dead inside. Pure evil. He didn’t just work for Brenner, doing his bidding. He enjoyed it, revelled in it, took pleasure in it. His black was always shadowed by an undercurrent of red. Anger and malice. It made her shudder to think about.

“Hey” she says softly, listening to the lapping water around them.

“Hey yourself” Billy replies, letting go of her shoulders and lazily pushing himself around to her side in the water.

They’d stripped off further down the beach, out of sight of the group closest the water by the fire, Helen down to her underwear and Billy all the way. She’d laughed as his bare ass had flashed by her as he ran into the water. He’d swum out a way and ducked under the surface for long enough that Helen had started to worry, visions of him drowning, off his face on acid, on his first weekend in Hawkins, under her care.

He’d broken the surface suddenly however, gasping for air and flipping his hair back out of his face, and immediately grinned at Helen.

“You gotta come down there. You can hear the water whispering.”

She’d laughed. His eyes were wide and bright, his excitement spread across his face.

“Oh Yeah? What’s it saying California?”

“It’s whispering my name” he’d said quietly, giggling. “Biiiiillllllllyyyyyyyyy.”

She’d laughed with him before taking a deep breath, the pair of them diving under the surface together, swirling around each other in some sort of underwater dance, watching the bubbles come alive, listening to the swish of the water and the rush of their own blood in their ears becoming music. Now they were drifting together, her on her back and him bobbing beside her head, the water splashing softly. 

“You think that water has a memory?” he asks, and Helen laughs as she raises her head from the water to look at him..

“What? That’s some serious stoned talk California” she says, swirling the water with her hands. 

“No, but listen” he says, his earnest tone making her laugh again. “Like, all the water gets re-used right? Like this water used to be rain, and then it’ll evaporate and fall again as like, snow or some shit. Do you think it remembers?”

Helen snorts, lays her head back in the water again and focuses on a cluster of stars that look like a horse, a horse that suddenly comes to life and gallops across the sky.

“I think we’re both high as fuck right now” she says, sighing softly. “Come watch this horse with me.”

Billy lays back in the water next to her, gazes up at the sky. She raises and arm, points to the star-horse that her eyes have been following.

“See? Just there, you can see it’s... what’s the hair called? Whatever it is, rippling in the wind.”

Billy squints a little as he follows her finger, before his eyes widen and he smiles. 

“Oh shit yeah! Watch that fucker go!” he says, laughing. 

“Hey you two!”

They both lifts their heads as Robin shouts to them from the beach.

“Get up here” she shouts, waving at them, illuminated from behind by the firelight, flames flickering in the darkness. “You’ve been in there for like, an hour already! I’m bored!”

Helen chuckles, bobs upright in the water.

“Come on California. Let’s go save our damsel in distress. She’s probably having a frigging aneurysm right now about the fact that she’s had to talk to a guy for more than five minutes.”

She swims toward the beach lazily, Billy right behind her, standing when she knows the sandy bottom of the lake will be beneath her feet and wringing the water out of her hair as she emerges. She heads for their pile of discarded clothes, stripping off her wet underwear before she grabs her t-shirt and dries herself off with it.

“You uh, want some privacy?” Billy asks her, and she smirks to herself as she reaches down to pull her jeans on, her back to him.

“Thought you’d be trying to catch an eyeful” she tells him, and she’s hit by a sudden wave of lust from him again, even though he hasn’t touched her this time. _Must be the acid_ she thinks as she zips up her sweatshirt over her bare chest, _he’s projecting and he doesn’t even realise it_.

It had taken her a long time to learn to control her projections when she was a kid. She’d had to shed her fear first, fear that was holding her back, reducing her control over her own powers. Once she embraced it, stopped trying to limit it, everything clicked into place.

“No” he grumbles, and she can hear his teeth chattering softly. “I mean, I like looking, sure. But I don’t sneak around peeping at girls gettin’ changed like some kind of perv.”

Helen smiles to herself as she slips her feet into her boots, tucks the laces in.

“Can I turn around?” she asks, frowning as she listens to his teeth clacking together harder now.

“Mmmhmm” he hums, shivering, and she spins on the spot to see him stood there in just his jeans, unzipped and unbuttoned, a trail of dark hair running up toward his navel from under them. In spite of her warnings about things never working out between friends when they turn sexual, she feels her stomach flip over lazily as she drags her eyes away from it. She shrugs to herself internally. He’s smokin’ hot, she’d be a fool to deny that.

“C’mere” she says, gesturing at him to come closer as she stoops to grab his shirt from the sand. He steps closer to her, hugging himself against the cold as she shakes the sand off, gathers it up and pulls it over his head.

“Aren’t you c-c-cold?” he asks as he pushes his arms through the sleeves, his arms immediately wrapping themselves back around his body. She shakes her head.

“I don’t feel the cold too much” she tells him, unzipping her bag. She pulls another hooded sweatshirt from it. “Let’s get this on you, warm you up.”

He shrugs into it as she holds it out and when he turns back to face her she pulls the hood up over his wet hair before she slips her hands under it, wraps her arms around him. She rubs her hands up and down his back, feeling how cold he is even through his shirt, her own skin feeling blistering hot in contrast.

“Jesus, y-you weren’t k-kidding” he laughs, and she smiles softly. She can feel that lust creeping through again, and she smirks to herself.

“If you get a hard-on, I’m leaving you to freeze” she tells him, and he laughs through his shivers.

“Too c-cold to g-get it up right n-now” he chuckles, and she laughs with him. He’s starting to feel a little warmer now, and she focuses on that heat, visualises it spreading through him in her mind’s eye as she pushes mentally, making it happen. It takes less than a minute before he’s ceased shivering all together, and she gives his back one last rub with her palms before she withdraws her hands, stopping to zip and button his jeans as his watches, his eyes widening slightly as her fingers brush his skin, his lust pulsing through her now. She bends and grabs his leather jacket from the sand.

“Put this on too, and let’s get up there to that fire. That’ll keep you warm.”

They walk back up the beach toward the fire together, the quiet hum of chatter and laughter getting louder as they approach.

“Finally!” Robin exclaims, dipping her hand into the cooler. “Was beginning to think you two had dissolved.” She pitches a bottle of beer to Billy, who catches it deftly, popping the top and catching the escaping foam in his mouth before passing it over to Helen. Robin tosses him another one and he sinks to the sand with it, Helen sitting by his side. 

“Nah, was just trying to get warmed up, thought hypothermia was gonna kick in” he tells Robin, twisting his bottle into the sand so he can hold his hands up in front of the fire. Robin rolls her eyes.

“I’m sure Helen warmed you up real good” she smirks, and Helen flips her middle finger at her.

“I don’t know where your filthy mind went Morrigan, but I was simply referring to your ridiculous year-round body heat” Robin says, and Billy nods.

“Yeah, what’s with that?” he asks, “You’re like a furnace, even after being in that freezing cold water.”

Helen shrugs, swallowing a mouthful of beer.

“I’ve always run hot’ she says, picking at the label on the beer bottle in her hands, wary of the direction the conversation’s heading. She can feel curiosity coming off of Billy in waves. “When I was a kid Pam used to complain that she could never tell when I was faking being sick cos I always had a fever.”

Billy scrunches his nose up, frowns slightly.

“Wait, I thought Pam was the grocery lady? Is she your guardian too?”

Helen shakes her head.

“No, Pam **is** the grocery lady. She’s more than that though, she looked after me when I was a kid. Like I said, my guardian works for the government, he’s not around much. I guess Pam was kinda like my nanny or something.”

Billy nods thoughtfully, dancing flames reflected in his eyes.

“Must be pretty cool living on your own, doing whatever you want” he tells her, twisting the top off his beer. “Nobody to answer to, no curfew, no rules.”

Helen chuckles softly, shakes her head. 

“There’s still rules” she says softly, watching the piece of label that she’s peeled from her bottle be whipped from her fingers by the wind, only to be blown straight into the flames opposite, swallowed whole. “Not as many as you guys maybe, but still.” She shakes her head, clearing thoughts of Brenner from her head. “So, Jonathan, you made a move on Nancy yet or what?”

Jonathan chokes on his beer, splutters and coughs as Robin laughs and thumps him on the back.

“Seriously?” he says, wiping a trickle of beer from his chin as he scowls at Robin, looking around at the handful of other people that are left on the beach to see if they’re listening. “You told her?”

“Dude, come on” she scoffs, holding her hands out. “Of course I told her, she’s my best friend. Yours too, in case you forgot. Besides, you know what she’s like. She picks up on these things, figures it out. Not that she needs to, I think the entire senior year knows you’ve got it bad for her. We’ve all seen the way you look at Steve.”

Jonathan grumbles to himself under his breath, something that sounds suspiciously like ‘asshole’.

“Who’s Steve?” Billy asks, draining his beer. Helen smirks as she reaches over and takes another bottle from Robin, hands out to him.

“You mean His Majesty hasn’t graced you with his presence yet?” she asks, and Robin snorts laughter. “Steve Hargrove, King of Hawkins High, his crown sculpted from his own stupid hair” Helen tells him, and Robin laughs out loud this time, Jonathan sniggering next to her. “He’s a rich kid from Loch Nora, drives daddy’s BMW and dates Nancy Wheeler, the most stuck up bitch in school. For some reason, J-Dog here has the hots for her.”

Jonathan shoots her a look that could kill before sighing, leaning back on his hands.

“She’s not that bad” he tells them, scrunching his fingers into the sand. “She’s nicer when she’s on her own, without Steve and Tommy and Carol. You can talk to her, you know.” He sighs. “I guess she changed after Barb went missing.”

“Who’s Barb?” Billy asks, frowning. The three of them are quiet for a minute, and Helen hears her own pulse pick up speed.

“She went missing last year” Helen tells him softly, trying to keep her voice even. She knows exactly what happened to Barbara Holland, or rather what Brenner knows about what happened to her. She read it from him, flicking through his brain like it was a filing cabinet, picking out what she wanted to know. “She’s never been found, no body, no trace of her, nothing. One minute she was at a party at Steve’s with Nancy, and the next she was gone.”

“Shit” Billy says, his eyebrows raised. “You thinks she’s dead?”

Helen looks at the sand for a moment before nodding, just once. Bully lets out a low whistle, wraps his arms around his knees.

“And here was me thinking we’d moved to some quiet little hick town where nothing ever happened” Billy says, regarding the bottle in his hand before knocking back what’s left in it.

Helen laughs mirthlessly, a dark sound that sends shivers down Billy’s spine.

“Nothings quite as it seems in Hawkins” she tells him softy, and when he looks at her he could swear that just for a moment the flames of the fire weren’t just reflected in her eyes, but actually **in** her eyes, and his arms break out in gooseflesh. “You’ll see that soon enough.”


	5. I Need An Easy Friend, I Do, With An Ear To Lend

They don’t stay on the beach for long after that. The conversation about Barb killed most of the vibe, and shortly after that Jonathan had stood up, announced that he was leaving because he had to be at the office at eight thirty.

“In the morning?” Robin had asked, incredulous. He’d nodded.

“I’m taking pictures at the Roane County Dog Show” he told them, sounding less than enthusiastic. 

“How exciting” Helen had said, sarcastically. “Be sure to let us know how that goes.”

They’d laughed as they stood, brushing sand off clothes and making sure they’d gathered all their belongings, Billy grabbing a bottle from the cooler as they’d left. Jonathan and Robin had headed for his car, leaving Billy and Helen to walk back to her place together.

———

“So” Helen says, glancing at him sideways as they walk down the road together in the direction of her house, “How’d you enjoy your first lake party?” She chuckles to herself, adjusts her bag on her shoulders. “Pretty lame right? Especially compared to California. Whereabouts did you move from anyway?”

“Los Angeles” he tells her, shrugging. “ I mean, yeah, there’s more going on there, but its not so bad here. People are alright.” He shoulder bumps her as they walk, grinning at her, and she laughs.

“Glad to have your approval California.”

He hums a sigh, looks up at the night sky. 

“I miss the ocean though. Especially the surfing. Spent all my time in the water, before school, after, sometimes even at night. On the weekends I’d spend the entire day on the beach, sun up to sundown. Now the closest real beach is hundreds of fucking miles away.” He looks at her, thinking. “We should take a road trip sometime. Drive to the East coast, find a beach, spend the day surfing. I could teach you.” Helen smiles softly.

“Sounds good. I’d have to run it past Br- Martin. Make sure he doesn’t mind.”

Billy looks at her as they turn into her driveway.

“Martin’s your guardian?” She nods, rummaging through her bag for her house keys.

“Yeah, that’s him. You coming in, or do you need to get back? You’re welcome to the couch if you wanna stay.”

He nods, and she gets a wave from him again, not lust, something softer this time that she can’t quite put her finger on.

Helen opens the door and he follows her through it, toeing off his boots and hanging up his jacket as she heads straight to the kitchen, fishing her wet underwear and t-shirt out of her bag and hanging it over the clothes airer in there to dry out before she pads down the hallway to her bedroom. She’s just stripped off her sweatshirt when she hears Billy in the doorway behind her.

“Hey, you mind if I- oh shit, sorry, I didn’t know you were, I’ll just-“

“It’s ok” she says, cutting him off as she turns around, pulling a clean t-shirt down and untucking her ponytail from the neck. “Not like you haven’t already seen me get dressed earlier.”

Billy clears his throat as he turns back to her slightly, his cheeks ever so slightly flushed.

“I just wondered if it was okay if I get something to drink? And if you wanted one?”

She smiles as she nods at him. 

“Sure” she tells him, pulling her sweatshirt back on. “There’s soda in the fridge, help yourself. Mi casa es tu casa.”

Billy frowns.

“Isn’t it su casa?” Helen nods.

“Both actually. Su is the formal version though. I figure we’re pretty informal now you’ve seen me naked or topless twice.” 

Billy’s cheeks flush again at that, and he runs his hand through his hair.

“Hey, look, that was an accident just now. And earlier, on the beach, you just stripped off, with no warning. I asked if you wanted some privacy.”

Helen laughs, ushers him out of the bedroom toward the kitchen. 

“I know that California. I was messing with you. Grab me a Pepsi.”

She wanders into the lounge, collapses onto the couch. She feels tired now that she’s sat down, could fall asleep right here. She knows it’s because she’s been picking up Billy’s projections all night, that it wipes her out when she’s constantly tuned in, saps her energy. She closes her eyes briefly, only for them to spring open when Billy plops down onto the couch next to her, holding out a can of Pepsi.

“Thanks” she tells him, popping the top and drinking, putting it down on the end table by her arm. She leans back into the couch, looks over at Billy, sat contemplating the can in his hand.

“So, how come you moved to Hawkins then?” she asks him and he sighs deeply.

“My dad’s job. He works for some specialist security company, best at what they do apparently. Well there’s this place here, some kind of laboratory, top secret shit or something, and they’ve been having some sort of problem with security breaches, data leaks, that sort of thing. They’ve put him in charge of it, putting a team in place and a plan together to find out who’s sneaking information out, how they’re doing it.” He shifts a little, turns his head to her. “So yeah, Neil dragged us all out here to Buttfuck, Indiana. Yay.” He fiddles with the ring pull on his can. “How ‘bout you, how come you ended up living here if your guardian works for the government? Shouldn’t you be in like, Washington or something?”

Helen’s mouth feels dry, all the moisture sucked from it and her tongue as heavy as lead. If Billy’s father is head of security at the lab, that means by now he’ll know all about her, about her unique situation, about her arrangement with Brenner. He won’t necessarily know about her gift, depending on his level of security clearance, but he’ll know enough. Enough that if he finds out that they’re friends, he might try to keep them apart. She swallows audibly, forces herself to smile at Billy.

“Martin, he uh, he does some work at the lab too.” She tries to sound breezy as she changes the subject. “So where are your parents tonight?” she asks him, picking at the frayed hole in the knee of her jeans. “Won’t they want you home?”

Billy shakes his head, and a wave of sadness washes over Helen.

“Nah” he says, finally twisting the ring pull from the top of the can and dropping it into the opening. “They’re away tonight, staying with some of Susan’s family. Besides, I don’t think Neil gives much of a shit where I sleep as long as I’m there in the mornings to take Max to school and bring her home again.” That sadness hits her again, a tinge of anger running through it.

“You don’t get along with him?” Helen asks him, and Billy barks a laugh.

“Understatement of the fucking century” he tells her, running his finger around the sharp rim of the can’s opening. “He’s an asshole. ‘Billy, looks after your sister’, ‘Billy, why can’t you be more responsible’ ‘Billy, when are you gonna get that faggot hair cut and stop acting like a goddamn’- oww, fuck that hurts.”

Helen looks down at his hand and sees that he’s crushed it in his hand, slicing his finger open where he was running it around the rim. For a second nothing happens, and then blood wells in it and oozes from it, running down his finger in a scarlet trickle.

“Oh shit, uh, come in the kitchen and I’ll clean it up” she tells him as she stands up, and he follows her into the kitchen, his hand cupped under his elbow to catch the blood that’s running down his arm now. She runs the faucet, pulls his hand under it and rinses the blood from it as he hisses and winces.

“It’s deep” she tells him, pulling it out of the stream of water to inspect it, blood oozing from it immediately. She can feel his pain as she holds his hand, a dull throb. “I think it’s slowing down though.”

She takes a clean tea towel from the drawer next to the sink, folds it lengthways and begins to wrap it around his finger and hand.

“I don’t have any band aids, sorry” she tells him as she wraps, the first layer turning a watery pink under her fingers.

“S’ok” he whispers, and his voice sounds a little gruff, so she looks up at him, not prepared for him to be staring straight into her eyes when she lifts her head. Not for the first time she’s struck by how beautiful his eyes are, and she finds herself stopping what she’s doing, just drinking him in. His breathing is a little ragged, and the pain she’s picking up from him starts to shift toward arousal. She runs her tongue over her lips, wetting them, and he starts to dip his head slowly, closing the distance between them.

“Billy” she whispers softly, and he hums in reply, his eyes closing, and just as his lips are about to brush hers the telephone rings, shrill and insistent. They both jump, Billy taking a step backwards, and Helen takes a deep breath to steady herself before she turns around and lifts the receiver off the phone on the kitchen wall. 

“Hello? ... You know what time it is right?”

She looks at Billy, rolls her eyes and mouths ‘Robin’ at him. He nods before he goes back to inspecting his finger just a little too intently, an air of embarrassment floating around him. Helen smiles a little and turns away from him.

“Wait, wait, back up. He’s missing again? ... Right, so he’s not missing... Okay, so what time does he want me to come over? ... Okay, yeah I’ll be there... Uh huh, he’s right here.” She turns ever so slightly, glances at Billy, still preoccupied with his hand and smirks. “No, we have not... No Robin, we will not be doing that... Okay, I’ll see you then. Bye.”

She hangs up the phone and turns back to Billy’s who’s re-wrapping his hand with the now-pink tea towel. 

“Robin” she says again, and Billy nods. “Something to do with Jonathan’s younger brother, Will. Some shit went down last year, he went missing for a while too. Apparently he’s been acting real weird. I said we’d go over there in the morning.”

Billy nods, clears his throat. 

“Uh, do you mind if I crash? I know you said I could, but I thought I’d check, you know-“

Helen cuts him off, waves a hand at him.

“Not a problem. I’ll grab you a couple of blankets from the linen closet.”

But the time she gets back to the lounge, Billy is fast asleep on the couch. Must have worn him out too she thinks as she spreads the blankets out over him. She looks back at him as she slips through the door, sleeping peacefully, and smiles.

“Night California” she whispers, and as she walks away the light snaps out, leaving him in darkness.


End file.
